Forest Fires
by MyMagentaPeach
Summary: Content: There is always Blaine. There has always been Blaine to help him through this since the attack, but now there isn't. The panic attacks have only gotten worse back in Ohio. Kurt needs Blaine to answer his damn calls. Note: This is my version of how Klaine get back together. Inspired by the great scene in Season 4 when a single call from Kurt gave a grieving Blaine hope.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Glee.

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**Forest Fires**

_Chapter 1_

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It is not a conscious ache. Not for a long time.

And people who claim it is, who claim it is the presence of any feeling ...

... they don't know what they are talking about.

Feeling, in those moments, is the furthest thing away.

Because the fear, in those moments, is no longer a feeling, it is a part of you that grows and claims you and takes you over, and makes you hand you over yourself.

It make it, giving yourself away like a good option, like the option, the thing, the only thing to do.

Because not having to be ... you ... anymore feels like the only thing that will make it stop, make this stop.

The thing that you cannot describe, or grab and get away from you, get out of your life forever.

And the only thing you know is that you have to make it stop.

Because there is no feeling anymore, no air, no breathing.

You are too exhausted to feel anything at all.

Kurt hardly feels the phone in his hands, fingers numb, but body still somehow connected to his brain, motor skills running still eerily smoothly. Autopilot ... a strange state to be in. But there is too much inside and it wants out, and it is making its own way like a forest fire, always finding new paths to consume more of its own breathing ground.

Typing in the number would be an impossible task, but Blaine ... Blaine is still on his speed dial, still, ... after months. Alone. Apart. Split ... in half.

Even on the good days there is nothing whole.

And this, today, tonight, ... this is not a good day. This is a nightmare, and there are nightmares in his sleep, and there is no waking up, no falling asleep, there is not even much of a blurry inbetween.

Kurt does not remember the last free, deep and deeply relaxing breath he has taken. Not since stepping off that plane and back onto Ohio grounds.

In New York Elliott and Dani had kept him sane after everyone else had left, a busy performance schedule a welcome distraction, cuddling up with Elliott sometimes on the couch, endless movie marathons with Dani and her new girlfriend Sara, a bright, blue-eyed social sciences and law student who was working her way towards turning her volunteer work with homeless kids into a full-time career. Artie immersed so deep into a film project, seeing him was not really seeing him. Always a painfilled reminder of what had happened to his friends from way back when.

"Blaine," it is pleading, broken – conjuring up those sounds necessary to form the word, so well known to his mind, his tongue. Muscle memory carries the weak sound past his lips, nothing more.

"Hi, this is Blaine. I can't pick up right now, but it would be lovely to hear how I may help you. Please leave ... ."

Kurt's faster and faster heaved breaths drown out the rest of the message to his own ears.

It is a sudden, sharp pang, and then Kurt feels himself burning up from the inside, the cold sweat making his body boil more and more on the inside, trying desperately for a balance that cannot be reached, and Kurt is starting to feel sick with his shortness of breath, dizzy.

Everything is aching now with the tension held in, but building constantly, Kurt knows it will burst, will break him, burn him to the ground ... alive, and then force him to build himself up again and again, only to do all of this over. And the tears are not pain but frustration. Anger much more than fear, and then breathlessness again, as the anger ebbs away.

He is about to be broken down, much further than he has been in so long.

But before it can happen Kurt breaks off the call, ... and tries again.

Over and over.

Blaine shrieks up in his bed as his phone starts ringing with NotTheBoyNextDoor.

Through the first handful of calls he just sits there, confused, eyes full of sleep still, curls a wild mess, thankful that Dave is not here tonight, has already moved out and on with that Gale guy he had met at Scandels a few weekends ago for the first time. Blaine had been surprised, but not mad. How could he be mad at Dave for his head being somewhere else, when Blaine's head had almost constantly been '... somewhere else.'

Blaine is still starring at the screen of his phone as it lights up once more, song beginning to play again all over.

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A/N: A big part of the rest to this story is already written, and there will be daily updates.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: As promised, the second chapter:)

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**Forest Fires**

_Chapter 2_

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Kurt wishes it could just happen, wishes he could just scream and cry and push himself into exhaustion.

But everything he is ... is trapped, trapped inside, under that thin, almost translucent, and still far too thick slab of numbness, holding the panic inside, keeping it cursing through him, like a buzzing electricity that does not energize but numb further, pounding all of him into a terrifying state of unresponsiveness.

It is, all over, like the time when his dad had still been fighting cancer; he had not been able to help what he had back then falsely thought to be bursts of OCD, not knowing it did not work like that. Nonetheless, he had not been able to help himself, had fought to occupy his mind - socks, sugar packs, colour schemes - keep it from putting him where he again is right now ..., trapped, forced to keep pushing that button on his phone over and over, unable to let go off it, off the hope in his hands. He cannot but refuse to let go.

But all the while, playing in his head is Carole King _"... something inside has die and I can't hide and I just can't fake it."_

And then there is a change ... and Kurt almost misses it, indeed does several times. Then, already about to push the button again ...

"... Kurt!"

Silence.

"Kurt, I swear if you push that button one more time and cut me off," when had Blaine started to answer? "I swear, I won't answer again, Kurt. ... Kurt?"

Blaine hears nothing but terrifying silence on the other end, then a stuttered out breath followed by a heavy, broken breathing sound, much closer this time, as Kurt turns off the speaker and hand shaking wildly all of a sudden, numb shell breaking, lifts the phone to his ear.

"Kurt?" Blaine whispers, worry growing as Kurt stays quiet.

"Bee?"

Kurt never uses that nickname anymore, well that is not completely true, but for the most part Kurt had only ever used it in the very beginning when he had needed Blaine in his life so much more badly than ever again since, back when Dave was still the bully he has not been in so long; and suddenly Blaine's hand, already clutching the phone harder, is shaking too.

As much as Blaine had loved the intimacy of that nickname, used by Kurt for the first time ever as he had cupped Blaine's cheek, after their second kiss ever, still out of breath from the kisses so quickly following each other, lunged into, and with excitement visible on his face had breathed out _"Bee."_

Blaine had never meant to suggest he wanted the Kurt back who had whispered that same nickname countless times down a phone line, too much distance between him at Dalton still and Kurt back already at McKinley. Blaine had just wanted to, '...just me being as sure of myself again as I had been back then.'

"Bee," it is a whisper now, full of doubt and sadness.

Blaine knows this sound all too well, pressed and barely audible ... it is the sound of not just any panic, but one of Kurt's later panic attacks the kind that has nothing to do with Dave.

The kind that had started the day Kurt had looked into his bathroom mirror, and all the wounds from the attack in that alleyway in New York had had healed completely to the bear eye, even his own fingertips touch, Blaine's too, but not the boy beneath, still strong, but ... changed. Afraid in a way he had not admitted to his dad, had not needed to, feeling empowered still in that moment by what he had done, had dared to do.

It had been the aftershocks of having had to do that, to stand up for himself and Blaine, and Elliott, Dani, Santana, Brittany and everyone else he knows who is not that average Jane or Joe that people for some reason feel more comfortable around still in so many parts of the world.

And Blaine had had no idea what had been happening when he had come home that day, unlocked the door to their apartment, just the two of them, just theirs now ... and found ... and found:

_All curtains are drawn, not a speck of daylight filtering in anywhere. "Kurt?" Blaine calls into the dark, slowly broken by the lamp he has just turned on. "Kurt?"_

_No answer. _

_As he walks closer to their bedroom and pulls the curtain fabric apart still there to separate the space from their living room, to keep it from the prying eyes of casual visitors, Blaine's eyes find his boyfriend, curled up small and shaking wildly under the covers. Two extraordinarily huge strides and Blaine is by his fiancee's side. "Love? What's wrong?"_

_The only answer is an increase in the shaking as sobs being to break forward and won't stop again. _

"_Hey, hey, shhh. Kurt. You are scarring me, please tell me what's wrong."_

"_Bee," and Blaine knows then, none of it matters right now. He quickly strips to his undershirt and boxers, and after getting their favourite quilt out and spreading it over the bed, carefully over Kurt's still shaking form, he climbs under the covers with him. Pulls Kurt into his arms, and holds on tight, like he used to do for Kurt after he had transferred back, all those afternoons, of having to go home alone after a day of McKinley, then, after knowing different, knowing that there is better out there ... so much harder to stand. It had been so hard for Kurt to choose daily attacks over Blaine and Nick and Jeff, Trent. _

"_Kurt," Blaine tries again as his boyfriend grows quiet in his arms. _

_But the quiet turns into an overbearing silence, and the boy in his arms, despite the extra covers and Blaine's own body heat so close grows cold, unmoving. _

_It is the scariest thing Blaine has ever had to do, just stay and wait, give Kurt time. _

_But he cannot help but shift and try to catch Kurt's eyes. As soon as he does though Blaine wishes he had not. They are as cold and unmoving as the rest of the boy, looking right through Blaine, dull, glazed over. _

_As Kurt's eyes eventually fall closed and stay that way, Blaine thinks Kurt has fallen asleep, but his breath is more absent than tranquil and evened out, and that ... is when it happens. What Blaine takes to be a sudden intake of air, but has Kurt first curling up tighter in himself, then in a flash scramble up and out of Blaine's arms, launching himself towards the window leading out onto the fire escape. Fumbling with the handle, whining in frustration before doubling over with his chest heaving insanely fast, breaths cut off and shallow. It is a whizzing sound, "Bee."_

_Blaine is on his knees by Kurt's side as soon as he hears him asking for him. _

"_Can't ... can't breathe. ... Bee!" It is a desperate plea for help, to make it stop to make it ... "Make it stop. Bee. Make it stop."_

_Blaine looks around helplessly then reaches out and throws open the window helps Kurt outside. _

_He rushes back in to collect the quilt, and some extra warm socks for both of them, which he only gets Kurt to put on after twenty-three more minutes outside, first Kurt walking back and forth wildly, tears, streams and streams of tears rushing down Kurt's cheeks, breathing becoming first less than more of a labour again, but seventeen minutes later Kurt has exhausted himself, and is curled up again in Blaine's arms, wrapped in the quilt, still crying. "Why am I freaking out so much?" _

_Blaine does not say anything, but he feels like he has been waiting for it, ever since the moment he had curled up with Kurt on that hospital bed._

"_Bee?" _

_Kurt is not looking for big words from him, Blaine knows, but a more honest kind of answer. _

"_I'm here, KK. Not going anywhere. We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out together."_

And then he had been gone.

Then they had both gone their ways.

... ended up here, months later.

A sound that is more whizzing than still whimper finds Blaine's ears. His reaction is pure instinct.

Blaine is in his shoes, outside his building and in his car in less than two minutes – fumbling with the keys, trying to fit them into the ignition. It takes what feels absurdly long.

Blaine knows, driving while on the phone, one-handed ... the man opening the door to him fourteen minutes later, Blaine still dishevelled and in his PJ, jumper hazardly throw on, inside out and back to front ... this dead tired but still kindly at him looking man would kill him if he knew about him driving like that.

"Burt! I need to see Kurt."

"Blaine, Kid, it's almost four in the morning. He's asleep."

Blaine shakes his head vehemently, indicating the phone in his hand ... and still at his ear.

Burt is still frowning as he steps aside.

"Thank you," it is a call back towards the man closing the front door, as Blaine already sprints up the stairs.


	3. Chapter 3

**Forest Fires**

_Chapter 3_

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Up the stairs, up up up the stairs.

It feels to Blaine like it takes forever.

But then he is standing hand reaching for the handle to open a door he has gone through more times than he has cared to count. It has been a second home, that space, maybe his first real home, ... being with Kurt.

Their first shirtless make-out.

The first time Kurt had made him come and he Kurt, unintentionally but so not unwelcome.

The first time ... Blaine had held Kurt, crying and shaking with tears, like he had always had to do alone, on yet another anniversary of his mom's death.

Blaine is breathing hard, standing there, hesitating for a moment as he holds his breath and listens for the sound absent from his phone. Maybe his heart is hammering too hard in his own ears to still be perceptive to the strained and subtle sounds. So he clears his throat and quietly asks into the piece "May I come in? ... Kurt?"

The intonation in the sudden sob hitting his eardrum is enough of a yes for Blaine, so intimately acquainted with the man inside those walls.

He is still careful when he pushes the door into the darkened room open, the light falling from the hallway within the room guiding Blaine's eyes. The bed lying somewhat beyond its reach looks ... empty.

"Kurt?" Blaine asks into the open air now, call ended, phone clutched unsurely in the hand hanging by his side. "Kurt, ... where are ..." Then Blaine sees him.

Clad in no more than a long shirt and boxers Kurt is curled up against the wall beyond his bed, a small space, allowing for no sudden, unnoticed approach. Kurt's phone lying on the floor in front of him, screen just turning back to black, the last light from the call just ended by Blaine vanishing into the dark air, surrounding the young man clutching the front of his own shirt with both hands, balled into fists, tearing it away from his throat, as if th soft, thin collar could cut off all air.

Blaine can see Kurt shaking, and only now, with a quick glance to his right, he notices the wide open flung window, carrying a quiet but cold night's air into the room.

Blaine is quick to grab the blanket covering the bed and pushing the phone aside, letting go off his own with it he is kneeling with Kurt, wrapping the blanket around him, knowing better than to try and close the window, deliberately kneeling beside Kurt, so not to block his clear path of sight outside, towards the large backyard of the house.

Kurt is still starring ahead, responds with another violent shiver to the blanket being wrapped around him.

Blaine thinks it is as his presence truly registers with Kurt that breaths begin to quicken again, where everything had been absence before Kurt feels the sudden push to react, but all his mind can do is send him spinning towards a new, another panic.

The tears come when Blaine does what only he can do, what only he knows to do, ... what Kurt has been missing for months and months.

Slipping out of his stiffest pieces of clothing, thankfully limited to jacket and shoes, Blaine scoots in behind Kurt, bracketing the man between his legs, gifting Kurt with a solid but warm place to lean on. After a moment's hesitation Blaine's arms find their way, wind around Kurt's painfully tight wound up form. "KK?"

The whine that meets Blaine's ears in answer is ... broken, hesitant. And Blaine's hold tightens instinctively on Kurt, "I've got you, KK. I've got you." 'I can hold you together for a little while,' Blaine thinks, keeps saying, "Try to let go. You can let it all out. I won't judge. I'd never judge," and Kurt's breaths growing in agitation are choked, Kurt working through it, turning into Blaine's embrace, and beginning to let out the desperate sounds, stuttering them into Blaine's still inside out and back to front jumper, while Blaine says soothingly, "I know, KK. I know. I'm here. I'm right here."

At some point they must drift asleep together because Blaine wakes up with a pain in his neck and a young man curled up against him on that very floor the next morning.

For a moment Blaine thinks Kurt is still asleep, but then he hears, "Bee? ... Don't leave."

"KK."

"Don't leave me."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** This is it folks, last chapter. I hope you enjoyed the read.

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**Forest Fires**

_Chapter 4_

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"... you were so distant," Blaine breathes quietly as soon as he has helped Kurt up and they have both separately spend some time in the bathroom, using the toilet, brushing teeth, washing faces, changing clothes, drinking a glass or two of water. Comfort after all is more than the right person by your side. First and foremost it is you by your side. But happiness is often something ... someone ... more.

They are soon curled up under the covers again, on the bed this time, "Right after it happened ..., you were so distant."

Kurt does not have to ask what, he knows, New York, the alley way. He nods into Blaine's chest.

"Why wouldn't you let me in?" Blaine thinks ultimately it had everything to do with them breaking up. So he has to ask, has to try and figure this out. He sucks his lower lip, shaking now into his mouth, bites down on it hard for a moment, "It made me feel like you did not trust me, like you did not need me either. And I ... I was hurting too, I needed you, and I needed you to let me in, to let me know that you do trust me. You were always there when I needed to talk about my family or Cooper, Sadie Hawkins, but you would not let me do the same for you anymore all of a sudden. It was always so different after we got back together. ... you never talk to me anymore about your mom, Kurt. I need us to talk to each other. I don't want ... I can't stand us literally growing apart more and more every day, I can't take that anymore. If you really want us to try this again ... I need you to open up to me. I want us to be _US_ not some cheap knock-off of what once was. I want to be happy with you, not the boy from years ago. I get that you have changed. And I want you, as you are now. Why can't you trust that ... that I will always want _you_?"

"I've been talking to someone," Kurt brings out.

"Not good enough Kurt, I need us to be talking to each other."

"No! Blaine, wait, I didn't mean I don't want to talk to you," Kurt is quick to rush out. His mind feeling for the first time his own again since he had lost all resemblance of control last night right before calling Blaine ... over and over. He is so sick of them misunderstanding each other. "I mean, I've ..., I've been seeing a therapist."

"Oh," the beat of silence is followed by a whisper, "Me too."

"What about?" Kurt asks in a whisper.

Blaine huffs out a small piece of breath. 'What about? ... Nothing.' "... Everything. Me. Us." Blaine swallows hard, next words caught in his throat. "How much I love you. How ... how I can't stop ... . Why did you want to stop trying? Why did you want us to stop? Stop being ... us?"

Kurt props himself up on his elbows, hand reaching to wipe away Blaine's tears, as he lies beneath Kurt, eyes pressed shut tightly, energy in the room slowly shifting, and then all of a sudden as Kurt says, "I never wanted us to stop. I didn't know how to tell you that ... that I was scared."

"Of what?" Blaine whispers, eyes still closed as Kurt keeps caressing his cheeks.

"Of not being enough for you. Of disappointing you. I ... I started looking for fights, picking fights with you because ... because, everything was going so well, and I was so scared of screwing up. Waiting for that moment, having to live like that, with that constant fear, I ... it made me crazy. I felt sick to my stomach all the time, and I couldn't ... I can't keep you safe. I never did."

"What are you talking about?" Blaine's eyes are suddenly open wide, meeting Kurt's, holding, searching.

"That alley ... being ... getting ... it took me weeks to understand."

"Understand what?" Blaine asks, hand holding Kurt's now, still resting on his cheek.

"I will lose you one day."

"Not for a long time. I will do my best to keep it as far off as I can. I stopped with the cronuts."

And Kurt lets out an actual snort then, at the playful tone in Blaine's voice, teasing, a teasing which turns into a tearing ... and new sobs.

"I don't want us to pick fights with each other anymore," Blaine says softly.

"I think I did most of the picking there," Kurt admits, amidst sobs, voice still shaking.

"Fine. I want you to stop trying to rip us apart just in order to have a reason to glue us back together. You know if this was a story it would be really shitty storytelling."

Kurt is the one to snort again and even hiccup a laugh then. "And how do we stop that?"

"How about we challenge each other to do new things together, learn new skills, keep something there for us to learn with and about each other?" Blaine suggests, eyebrows raised.

"And if that doesn't work?"

Blaine is quick to answer, not wanting Kurt to spiral into one of his lows again, the inevitable panic attack, "Remember when you were about to finish high school, and I was so scared of losing you I went all psycho on you ... like you did on me in New York when we broke up?"

Kurt nods, swallowing hard, unsure where Blaine is going, starring at him blankly as he asks "... what did we do?"

Blaine cannot help but smile at Kurt's clueless gazing, eyes wide, and lips slightly parted, and Blaine has to hold back from devouring those lips, the breathy gasps he knows they hold, "We talked to each other."

"That's it?" Kurt asks, looking even more confused now, and slightly angry, upset.

"Well, we had someone help us talk to each other. And I think with some coaching we could learn to do that with and for each other."

It clicks in Kurt's head then, the talks with their guidance counsellor, Miss Pillsbury.

Kurt is sucking in a sharp breath as Blaine shifts his weight, their position, and rests their foreheads together as Kurt is lying back on the bed, they soon breathing together, "You really think we can make it happen?"

"I know I will always love you enough to never want to stop trying." Blaine draws back then, fixes his eyes firmly on Kurt's, and his voice is serious but soft, withdrawn but sad as he adds, "Unless you want me to. I don't want to, but I will walk away right here and now if you say you are happier with ... with someone else, if you want us to stop fighting for each other. To be us. Kurt, I think it will always be somewhat of a fight. I really want us to fight for us though and not against each other. I want you to let me in and help you overcome these panic attacks. I want us to let your family in on it too, what ... how you are hurting. I know your dad is dying to help. I have seen him around town several times, and the way he talks to me ... he knows. He knows things aren't right or okay. And I promise I will stop being so uptight about things, but also I think we should just adjust and just double some stuff in our apartment, keep it separate, like those silly towels. So we don't get at each other all the time over nothing, just because we have different habits. Because, I honestly love you and your habits. I remember us getting first together, and discovering all those little things you do different, and how adorable and endearing I found the way you cut your sandwiches different from me. And how your clothes must be in perfect order, but you love leaving somewhat of a chaos of papers on your desk, and the thing with the towels. And I don't really mind any of it. I don't want you to change for me. I want us to grow together into something new. Like, you know, ... your dad and you when you get back together, I bet you still ..."

But Blaine is cut off by Kurt's demanding kiss. Once broken Kurt allows no new doubt to creep in, "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, Blaine. Yes. Please. I want all of that with you. Please come back to New York with me, next year. Please. I want to try. Please. We'll get a place with proper walls, and each of us their space. A room each so we can choose to be together, not be forced into it."

Blaine is beaming as he pulls Kurt fully into his arms, burying his face in the crook of Kurt's neck, tears mixing with kisses on Kurt's skin. Kurt holds on tighter than he thinks he ever has.

When they come downstairs later, lips red and kiss swollen, the table is set for two, a note propped up against a carton of juice, "Fighting is normal and healthy. You'll learn how to work through the fights faster in time. Happy newest anniversary. How many of those do you guys have by now? Better make a list. Don't want to get into a fight over something like that. Love you boys, Dad. P.S.: Carole says hi too!"

Kurt leans over and places a kiss on Blaine's cheek, who turns and looking up from the note still in his hands smiles at Kurt, free hand reaching down and lacing with Kurt's whispers, "I love your dad. We really better make that list."

"I know," Kurt says through a smile, "After breakfast, ... and a nap?"

"On the living room couch?" Blaine quips happily.

"Your favourite spot in the house," Kurt beams. Happy to be reminded that they know and love each other far more and far better than most couples ever get the chance to in all of their lives.


End file.
